


Shades of Gray and Black

by GodIsZombie



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bad Parent Talia al Ghul, Batbrothers (DCU), Batfamily (DCU), Child Abuse, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Damian Wayne-centric, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt Damian Wayne, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tim Drake, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason is a Dork, Mentioned Talia al Ghul, Other, Parent Talia al Ghul, Protective Jason Todd, Self-Harm, Tim Drake Angst, Tim Drake Has a Bad Time, Tim Drake Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 09:33:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24468787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodIsZombie/pseuds/GodIsZombie
Summary: Tim and Damian get into an ugly argument over Talia Al Ghul.  Because no matter how much Talia may have hurt him, she's still Damian's mom.  And he can't help but love her.  Because no matter how much Tim wants to understand, he can't change who he is.  And he can't change what's right.The brothers end up a little closer to understanding one another and a little further away from a connection they both want.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Comments: 10
Kudos: 355





	Shades of Gray and Black

**Author's Note:**

> So, anyone else in the mood to feel sad? Also Tim cusses just... just so much here. Alfred is about to shove a whole soap factory in this boy's filthy filthy mouth.

"Fucking she bitch."

Damian knew even before looking at the casework Drake was crouched over like some sort of spindly goblin, that the older boy was taking about his mother. It was the way he spoke about all of the Al Ghuls, Damian himself included. Something in the tone. Drake always had a particular hate for those with his blood. And despite all of Damian's best efforts to control it, the vitriol stung. Drake was below him. And allowing the opinions of his lesser to effect him was, unseemly. Mother would be disappointed. Still, the feelings persisted, "Watch your tongue before I remove it." Damian hissed, arranging his features into something akin to the edge of a knife. Covering his own inadequacies in the only way he had always been taught was acceptable. Aggression.

Tim glanced over at Damian with an expression that screamed nothing so much as exhausted, dismissive, annoyance. Only partially because he knew how much his little brother hated it when anyone, but especially Tim, looked at him like that. "I'll stop saying it when it stops being true gremlin. Your mom is a fucking bitch." It's harsh. And according to Dick he's supposed to pretend to be considerate so the kid doesn't go full super villain. But Tim's been up for 76 hours. Talia put a bounty on Damian's head, which they're not allowed to tell him about because no one thinks the kid is mentally sound enough to handle it. And Tim just doesn't have enough energy left in him to be tactful to a litteral baby who regularly tries to murder him today.

"My mother is a good woman Drake." Damian growls. "I will not allow your disrespect." Damian knows mother isn't a good person. He didn't used to. But his new 'family' has gone belligerently out of their way to make that point clear to him. Still, Damian is sure she isn't bad. Not really. It's just, it's just no one understands her. No one knows her the way that he got to. So they make assumptions. And none so much as Drake.

"There's nothing good about Talia Al Ghul. For fucks sake, your mom is the psychotic head of a fucking international terrorist ordination. Actually, scratch that. She's the head of several international terrorist organizations."

"She is trying to change the world for the better you imbecile!"

"She's trying to kill millions, us included!"

Damian snorted dismissively, "You maybe. Mother would only ever kill those without value."

Tim sighed through his nose. Litteraly biting his tongue to keep himself from saying what he really wants to. "Look, kids, I'm sorry." Damian hated it when anyone called him kid. Despite being ten years old, with the overall girth of an underfed seven year old. It was something to do with league training Tim remembered. Damian called it nutritional conditioning. His little brother despised the mere idea of anyone seeing him as the child he was. Which is exactly why calling him kid had become a habit. Tim knew he shouldn't provoke the demon. He knew he should be more like Dick. Endlessly patient, endlessly loving. Endlessly naive. But Tim was man enough to admit that he just didn't have it in him to be like Dick. A dick sure. But, the world was ugly. And Tim couldn't help but be anything other than what he was. "I'm sorry youre crazy fucking mom brainwashed you into thinking," he stopped himself. No need to be cruel though, "into thinking whatever it is you think. But Talia Al Ghul is a monster and I'm not going to lie about it to spare your feelings."

"You know nothing Drake." Damian hissed. "Nothing of me, nothing of my upbringing, and certainly nothing of her. You pretend to be so clever. Convince father, grandfather, even yourself that you have all the answers. Talk the entire world into believing in your intelligence. But I know the truth. You are the weakest of all of us. The most foolish. You deceive yourself into believing you know the truth and it blinds you. You manipulate the facts to fit around your," he paused, spitting out the next word like a curse, "emotions. Your feelings. You are blind and stupid and weak. And I will not allow you to lie about a woman you know nothing about."

Tim barked out a harsh laugh, "I'M blind?! I'M controlled by my feelings?! Jesus kid you're so fucking- The murderous god damed rage monster who fucks up the life of literally every single person who has the displeasure of meeting him says I'M controlled by my feelings. The brainwashed psychopath who can't even see past his own programming calls ME blind. That's fucking rich." 

"My mistake. Weak, blind, emotional, stupid, AND childish."

"Look you horrible little demon, I don't have time for you're family bullshit today. So can you kindly fuck off with your mommy issues?" Tim was, admittedly not the best at de-escalation. Especially not when it came to his little brother. But the attempt had to count for something right? Apparently not. 

"You are the one inciting conflict you disgusting degenerate. You are the one who insists on insulting my mother. Who looks down your nose at my noble bloodline. No doubt because of some pathetic, but clearly correct sense of jealousy."

"You're so called 'noble bloodline' is a dumpster fire! You and you're family represents every terrible aspect humanity has ever had. And Talia is fucking satan in a pretty dress and red lipstick."

"She is better than you could ever hope to be!"

"Only as a murderer!"

"The killing was necessary! Unavoidable for both of us. And only one of the many skills in which my mother and I surpass you. If you weren't so feeble minded you might understand that. Perhaps you require a demonstration of my family's skills." Damian growled, his tone darkening. 

"God you can't even see it can you? You're just so... fucked up. If you weren't a monster it would be almost sad."

"I am no such thing!"

"Then how can you stand there and defend the honor of a woman who actively hates you?!"

"Mother loves me!" Damian roared.

"She put a bounty on your head!" Fuck. Tim should not have said that.

Damian stopped short, his mouth snapping closed with an audible click. "What are you taking about Drake?"

"It's... forget I said anything."

Damian eyed him for a second before clicking his tongue obnoxiously, "T-t you're lying."

"Sure."

"You are!" Damian yelled sounding more desperate than anything else. "Just because you're parents never loved you doesn't mean-"

"You know what?!" Tom interrupted, furious despite himself. "Fuck it! You want to do this then let's do this! Your abusive as fuck mom wants you dead! She is paying people to have you murdered!"

"Mother would never abuse-" Damian tried. But once again Tim cut him off.

"And the only thing I can't figure out is if she's doing it because Talia is a demented, evil whore happy to murder her own kid, or if it's because you're so fucking unlovable that your own mom is trying to do the world a favor by getting rid of you! On the one hand Talia is a stone cold bitch. But on the other literally no one wants you, not us, not her, not your dad, not youre noble grandfather. No one. Which one do you think it is demon? Huh?! Cause I'm learning towards fucking both!"

"That's not- she didn't. I don't-" Damian growled in frustration. Unshed tears gathering in his eyelashes and making the world around him blurry. He couldn't find the right wordsand he felt his control slipping. Without noticing his arm reached up, fingers tangling in his own hair for a second before he began to yank at the follicles absentmindedly, just enough to illicit waves of soothing pain accross his scalp. It was a bad habit that he developed in the very earliest days of his training. Unbecoming of the demon's head heir. Damian had thought his teachers had finally beaten it out of him after the last time he'd been caught. They'd broken each of the bones in both arms from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers. Individually, and over the course of hours. But just like always, the lesson didn't seem to have taken permanently. And now his teachers were gone. He'd have to punish himself for the behavior later in their stead.

He tried to breathe through his nose and force his hand back down. Managing it on his second try. He backed away a couple of steps, curling into himself so that he wouldn't have to see Tim's gloating face after that shameful slip in persona. Damian wanted to leave, wanted to bolt up the stairs and hide in his room. But that would mean admitting defeat, and he couldn't bear it. Not on top of everything else that had happened tonight.

Fuck! Tim fucked up. He really, really fucked up. He had been so angry, so tired. And nothing he said to the kid was a lie. None of it. But Damian didn't look like a monster anymore. He didn't look like some hate filled thing. More creature than man. He just looked, small. Small, and broken. Just a broken little kid that nobody wanted. Pulling at his own hair and curling around himself and- And Tim remembered that. Remember exactly how that felt. And he'd caused it. And Tim had fucked up. "Damian. I-"

"WE DIDN'T ASK TO BE THIS!" The boy screamed, taking another decisive step backwards. The words bounced against the cave's walls. Echoing back at them in the quiet that followed. 

"We didn't! And you don't KNOW! You'll never know! None of you." Damian still wouldn't look up, couldn't. He knew it was weak, that he was acting unbecoming. Cowardly. Childish. But the knowledge of his weakness did nothing to change the reality that he still couldn't. So he tried not to think about it.

"You never saw the way she fought against her first time in the pit! Even with her body as broken as it was. The way she begged for death because she knew what she would be after. You never had to choose between helping to hold her under, or joining her in the grave. 

"You've never seen your own mother pointing a loaded gun at her temple because voices you can't hear wont stop whispering. You never had to wrestle it out of her hold while fearing that it would be kinder to let her continue. 

"You have never been tied down and publicly whipped for not being enough. Never forced to drink poison, or march for hours on broken feet. Climb mountains with broken arms. Kill. Torture. Be tortured. You were never raised to be a weapon."

"Damian." Tim started before realizing he had nothing else to say. 

"And," Damian continued. Filling in the awkward gap as if Tim had never said anything to begin with, "you never saw the woman who held me in her lap after the more difficult days and told me old children's stories. Ameen and the ghool, the man who never laughed, the enchanted head, the blind Baba-Abdalla. The woman who shooed the servants back into their quarters and cooked oxblood soup for me when I was ill or too injured for proper training... She would set me on the countertop so that I could watch her dance from one end of the kitchen to the other, singing quietly to herself." Damian almost chuckled then, lost in the memory, "I have never in my life heard someone with less of an affinity for song. Not even Grayson. But still, I did miss it when she stopped singing altogether."

Damian finally looked back up towards Tim. Too much feeling written across his face. All his walls suddenly torn down. As venerable as Tim had ever seen him. And Tim couldn't help himself when he flinched away from it. "You don't know. You don't know the choices we had to make. The people we have to be."

There was a long pause after that. Both brothers too busy taking each other in for what felt like the very first time. But eventually, Tim spoke, his voice soft. "You're right. I don't know." Damian's eyes lit up with something that almost felt like hope. And Tim wanted that to be it. Wanted desperately for that to be the only thing he needed to say. If he were Dick he's sure it would be. But, the world was ugly. And Tim couldn't help but be anything other than what he was. "But your pain, her pain, it doesn't take away the pain you've caused. It's not fair, what happened to either of you. It never will be. But it doesn't excuse your crimes. Not to your victims. And not to me. And, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but your suffering doesn't wash away the blood of the innocent."

And just like that the hope died and the walls came back up as if they were never gone. And for the first time, Tim couldn't even blame the boy. "T-t no. No, I suppose not. But I cannot see the world in stark black and white the way you do Drake. I think, I think that must be a gift for people who have never been forced into choosing between dark shades of gray. And I cannot help but see you as weak because of it." Damian didn't wait for a reply, instead he turned on his heels and marching up the stairs and back out of the cave. Head held high and back ramrod straight. In stark contrast to his older brother. Who sat back down in his seat, eyes downcast and body hunched into itself.

Tim didn't do the right thing. He knew it. But he wasn't wrong either. Someone had to speak for those that could no longer speak for themselves. And someone had to look at at the world for what it was, instead of what everyone hoped it could be. Even if hurt terribly to do it. Someone had to. And it might as well be him. Right?

~~~•●•~~~

Jason was having a very long night. And yeah, sure. They were all long nights. His second life was funny that way. But this one felt particularly long. He dragged his very tired and mildly beaten body in through the 7th story window of his apartment. Dropping his hood on the ground with a loud clatter that he's sure he'll regret in the morning. That red paint job looks cool as hell, but it chips like a motherfucker. 

But that was tomorrow Jason's problem. And fuck that guy for real. He was only about six feet away from glorious collapse. Face down across his ratty old couch, as is traditional on nights like this, when tragedy struck. Tragedy in the form of a knock at the door. A knock at the door to his secret apartment that no one was supposed to know existed. At three in the morning. "Fuuuuuck." The universe really hated Jason Peter Todd.

With one last, longing look towards his couch Jason stormed towards the front door. Ready to kill whoever was on the other side, no questions asked. He unholstered his favorite .45 and snuck over to the door. Aiming at the most likely location to hit center mass while angling his own virtual organs more or less away from enemy fire. He hoped anyways. If things went according to plan. Which had literally never happened in Jason's entire life.

Jason arched his spine forward to stare through the peep hole. Which, creepy fucking name if you stopped and thought about it. Worse than moist. And Jason fucking hated moist. He shook himself with a quiet, frustrated huff. Now is not the time Todd. Focus up! ...But damn did his back not like this position. He may not even be able to drink legally yet, but Jason felt old. Like, Bruce old. And nope. There went his attention span again. Ok, he reasoned. The sooner you get this over with the sooner you can go to bed. Or couch. Whatever.

He peered through the peep hole and his body instantly relaxed out of its awkward position. It was just Damian. At his secret house. At three in the good damned morning. Why the fuck was damian ar his house? Shit.

Jason violently threw open the door before he could think better of it. Half to properly display his anger, and half because he unapologetically loved the the drama of it. "The fuck are you doing here bat brat?"

Damian flinched backwards but seemed to recover pretty quickly. "Todd. I-" the kid gulped. A rare show of emotion. Then looked somewhat disgusted with himself. The seemed to steady before continuing. All in the space of a single second. And Jason could already tell he was way too tired with whatever was about to happen. "I request your assistance."

"Not interested."

He started to close the door when the kid blurted out, "Is mother a bad person?"

And Jason froze. This was about Talia? That couldn't be good news. He took a second to really study Damian. And the kid looked, well... If he were a normal ten year old Jason would say he looked like he was about to cry. But this was Damian. And Damian didn't DO that. Still, the kid looked sad. This was clearly some sort of, feelings type of thing. 

"Look, I'm not... This seems like something you should probably be going to your dad about?" Wait. No. Bruce had the emotional range of yogurt flavored yogurt. "Or Dickface. Probably Dickface."

Damian just looked up at him. Eyes impossibly wide and sad. And Jason just knew he had already lost. "I, I need you." Damian began. "Because you KNEW her. And I- is mother bad? Please."

So much for sleeping then. Jason opened the door a little wider and stepped aside. Making room for his littlest brother to fill the space. "Come inside then. I'll uh, I'll make us some tea or something and we can talk about it."

"Thank you Todd." And scarily enough, Jason could tell the brat actually meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> As far as the time line goes this one is a little wobbly. Damian is still pretty new to the batclan. But not so new that he hasn't just begun to question things. He's not Robin yet. And uh. Yeah. 
> 
> In this universe Talia didn't get her first dunk in the lazarus pit until Damian was around seven. And it was super shitty for litteraly everyone. It changed her. Don't get me wrong, she was still abusive by any human standard. But she genuinely loved Damian before the pit in a way she couldn't after. And she really did think she was doing the best she could for him. But her dad real fucked up her stance on what constitutes good parenting.


End file.
